we i mean the united states and countries of the world and the weakest link in the fabric. this is the illustration that we have seen. we are living in an interconnected global economy and global system. we had no direct flight to the united states at the present from those three countries in west africa. and yet, we are linked up with them read some 60 to 70% of the people who travel to the united states from those three countries are in fact american citizens or green card holders, so we are linked up in a very significant way. ..

it's going to take time because building health infrastructure is this something that happens overnight. had at the end of september in washington a major gathering at the minister level of the representatives of these 40 countries, and each made commitment to strengthen the health care infrastructure and a number of other developing nations. the unite united states has takn august sure, other countries are doing their part. that's going to have to be a set of investments that we sustain over time and take seriously. >> let me ask you this final

question. there's the list of problem areas. we didn't get through all here, and by the way, the attorney general got to ask, answer as if a question who should play him in the movie. you should feel free to answer that question if you would like. >> halle berry. >> there you go. [laughter] [applause] >> i should be so lucky. >> the more serious final question i was going to ask you is this. for somebody in your position when you go home at night, what's the finger like to be able to spend your time on that you can't? >> my kids. >> that's true. i'm sure that's true. what's the world problem you would like to double to devote some brain cells to? >> whelp -- >> things get pushed off the radar screen by the crisis of the moment. most people have in the back of the mind something they wish they could get around you and i wonder if there's one of those for you? >> in fact it may be hard to imagine if you're watching the television and seeing what is

being relayed every day, but the fact of the matter is we have no choice but to be working not only on the hot issues or even the crises of the day, but the long-term aspects of our agenda. what we're discussing, the global health agenda is a classic example of something that gets very little attention in the press. most people wouldn't know about if it weren't for the ebola crisis. even there there is ebola crisis most people don't know about it. but it is building architecture for the long-term and we're doing that in many different respects, whether it's our nonproliferation agenda at the nuclear security summit that we've held to lock down and try to make much safer nuclear materials that are injuries places around the world -- various. build open government

partnerships, another important initiative of the administration where we're trying to fight corruption and build transparency in countries around the world. dmx example of why that matters. -- eu an interesting example. this open government partnership has brought together 60 countries to make commitments that they will share information with their population, you consumer tax revenue goes and have all kinds of systems that hold governments accountable. very valuable in general for the democracy, for voters to be able to know what's going on, but we have one of our open government partners is sierra leone. and because sierra leone is part of the system they have been able to utilize and disseminate information with their population has been beneficial in communicating in dealing with the ebola epidemic. so all of these things are interrelated but even though they may not be front page of "the wall street journal," they

are important, lasting contributions that the president is committed to locking down that will, in fact, leave behind a far more secure and far more open and democratic set of partners around the world spent susan rice, you do get more time that i hope you dig a more time with their kids. >> thank you very much. [applause] thank you. once again on margaret low smith, the president of the atlantic. white house session security adviser susan rice, our last guest who will be played by halle berry when the movie comes out. what a morning to suspend the we had two women running giant sports franchises, three months of president cabinet come and attorney general of the godfather and the conditions. ceos from etsy to nrg, a cake maker, a comedian, some quite

cometary over there. i hope your minds are bursting with new ideas. i've been in all look at all of you. you have paid stunning attention for four hours to that is unprecedented. so please give yourselves a round of applause for being a great audience. [applause] lunch await you on the second and third floor but you let them eat, time to network before you dash forward. we will gather back here at 2:00. afternoon lineup is still put it includes ico shane smith, walter isaacson, steve case, joseph o'neill and gary stein garden. that's just a sliver but we have a second stage with a deep dive conversation which include a small town mayor leading big change from an event, activists. 92 partners at the aspen institute, to our underwriters who could make it impossible that the present level, comcast, nbc universal, hitachi, nestlé, the walton family foundation. of the sporting level, aft, american federation of teachers,

the national council for behavioral health and google. contributing underwriters, allstate, g. s. k., mckenzie. enjoy lunch. enjoyed each other. see you back here at 2:00. [inaudible conversations] >> they have been talking i guess it's about 9:00 eastern this money. the six annual washington ideas

forum hosted by the atlantic and the aspen institute. as you may have heard they're going to gather again at 2:00 eastern and lots more ideas and conversation this afternoon with people like t. boone pickens, jay carney and they present it as the institute and author walter isaacson. live coverage will resume when the gavel that can can come back in about 2:00 eastern. turning to our campaign 2014 coverage with elections less than a week away now coming up at 8:00 eastern tonight.

>> be part of c-span's campaign 2014 coverage. follow was on twitter and like us on facebook to get debate schedules, video clips of key moments, debate previous from our politics team. c-span is bringing over 100 senate, house and governor debates and you can share your reactions to what the candidates are saying. the battle for control of congress. stay in touch and engaged by followers on twitter at c-span, and liking us on facebook at facebook.com/cspan. >> live coverage of the washington ideas forum will resume at 2:00 eastern. when they gathered again, if we didn't say so let us remind you the conversation from this morning available on our website, c-span.org. one of those conversations was with defense secretary chuck hagel who this morning announced that the pentagon has approved

the recommendation by military leaders that all u.s use of tros returning from ebola response missions in west africa be supervised in quarantine, and isolation for 21 days. here's that conversation from this morning. >> [applause] >> thank you, steve.u thanks especially to secretary hagel for joining us es this on. hagel for let's start offjo with one bit f news. they are some people order you signed today. talus but what that is what theg significance is. >> what i signed thisis morning was a memorandum to the chairman of the joint chiefsof of staff n response to the memorandum ofren recommendationda i received from chairman and the chiefss yesterday to go forward with a policy of essentially 21 day fon incubation for our men and womet who would be returning from west africa africa. that policy was put in place by

the chief of staff of the army a couple of days ago for general williams, and 10 of his associates who are now back at their base in italy. and what i said in response this morning was, give me within 15 days the operational specifics of how that would work. and then i believe we should review the policy within 45 days. the fact is the military will have more americans in liberia than any other department. that's number one. number two, our people, our younger cohorts are different. they are not volunteers. and this is also a policy that was discussed in great detail by the communities, by the families

of our military men and women. and they very much wanted a safety valve on this. so that's essentially what the directive says. >> so that's the news of the day. let's talk about broader picture. steve mentioned all the parts of the world for thing things thate the concerns you and the military are blowing up. could you give us a brief the picture of a dangerous you think this time of history is? isn't chronic annoyance or actual danger? and when will the united states see some end to these wars, especially in a 13 year war in iraq and afghanistan? >> jim, i think we are living through one of these historic defining times. i think we are seeing a new world order, post-world war ii, post-soviet union implosion being built.

many questions about first among the american people and our leaders, what's the role of america in this new world that is evolving? should we have a role? what is appropriate? and the inventory of issues that steve mentioned coming onto the stage with you, and your question, gives us some snapshot into what we are all dealing with. each one of these issues, regardless of where they are, affects us now, will continue to affect us into the future. i said, chairman dempsey said, president obama has said, secretary kerry, others, that what we are seeing in the middle east with isis, isil, is going to require a steady, long-term effort. it's going to require a coalition of common interest which we are forming. we have more than 60 countries

now with us to deal with this. this is an ideology. this is a dynamic that in total we have never quite seen. then you look at all the other dimensions, the rise of china, russia, what russia has been doing the last six months. pandemic disease, ebola being an example. budget issues. we have a congress that can't work together. i hope that changes after next tuesday. i don't know but we need all of our institutions functioning, including the congress to do with these great issues. because they have long-term consequences, global warming. i mean, every facet that we see out there today is rolling back on us in some way. if we are not paying a price today, we will pay the price to mark. >> the secretary made interesting speeches about the role of climate change as a security issue. you mentioned the role of the congress. it's a unique phenomenon and you were an influential center --

senator and there are four former members, president obama, joe biden, yourself in secretary kerry who are now in these positions a great executive authority at just the time when there seems be less congressional involvement in the decision-making, the accountability and the connection between defense policy and the public that historically has been the case. how should we think about this? is this a problem? >> well, in one way there is not less involvement. but the way i would say it, i think there's less partnership. and partnership is critical here because it isn't a matter of we all have to agree. that's not the issue. we need different opinions. but we've got to have a strong enough partnership, for example, with us to allow us to make the kinds of reforms internally, whether its base closing or we don't need anymore of these planes on these ships, but we do

need these for the future. we've got to have the partnership strong enough so that both sides can get to some conclusion and make a decision on how we go forward. congress is critically important here. it is article one of the constitution. i was in the congress as you noted. i was very protective of that constitutional responsibility. they control the money. they are closest to the people. so we need them, and i have tried in the time i have been secretary of defense to continue to reach out and build those partnerships. we can't do this any other way. and again, i'm hoping over the next couple of years we will see a culture of self correction. because that's probably the greatest strength america has is with difficulties and problems and issues we can self correct.

and i hope that comes together. >> i go back and ask again part of my initial question i through at the end, again it's been 13 years now that we've been involved in more or less open-ended combat in the middle east, about 1% of the population affected and the rest not. at what point, if ever, will and administration be able to say this war is over? >> i think the way we have to look at this is tyranny, terrorism, the challenges and threats to our country, the freedom for certainly the short term is going to be with us. it's a reality. now, the challenges and threats to a nation, to an individual are not new in the sense that

threats are new. the history of mankind has been about that. it's always the response and how do you do it. and we have to be smart here. we've got to the big things right. we won't get everything right. we've got to get the big things right. what i mean by that in answering your question, coalitions of common interest. we won't get it right with every country. we will agree with every country, but we've got to focus on in of common interests to build a relationship that deals with the threats to all our countries. isil, extremism, radicalism, terrorism is a threat to every state, to every society. we've got to build those platforms to work from there to get. unfortunately, i see these things continue to stay out there, jim. i think we're in for longer-term challenge here than maybe any of us would help.

but that's the world that we live in and we've got to be honest about that and we've got to be smart about it. >> the climate issue, in the senate you saw the extremely polarized discussion of climate and energy issues. now in the defense department it's been one of the leaders on awareness of these issues both the potential threat and fuel and all the rest. what is the defense department doing on climate issues, different fuels? might that change the broader national debate do you think? >> from my perspective within the portfolio that i have responsibility for, security of this country, climate change presents security issues for us. what do we mean by that? well, let's take the arctic. glaciers are melting. there can be arguments about why but let's put those arguments the site. the fact is the glaciers are melting. you are saying that part of the world opened up.

if, in fact, the continued we're going to see a new waterway right into the heart of the arctic. that means exploration for natural resources, oil and natural gas and minerals. that is going to attract, it already is, great powers. that there's a security dynamic to that. as the oceans increase, it will affect our basis. it will affect islands but it will affect security across the world. so just from my narrow perspective, what i have responsibility for, that's happening now and we have to be prepared for that. the leadership as much anything else estimate in this room knows is to prepare the institution that you serve, that you lead for what's coming. and so we have laid out a new arctic strategy.

i did that first in halifax last november. i was just in south america about a month ago to lay out the roadmap and how we are dealing with this. i just sent this morning one of our deputy assistant secretaries to iceland for a conference the next two days. this is critically important that we pay attention to this. bottom line is, with all the crises of the moment, and that's part of my job, to manage immediate crisis, we also cannot lose sight of the strategic longer-term challenges that face our country either. and this is one that we got to be smart in how we handle it. spent behind the political figures who would resist and argue about climate change respond differently when it's coming from the pentagon? >> i think there is sometimes more of an awareness and edge put an issue it comes from the pentagon.

only because the military, the pentagon has maybe at least perceived by many people in more serious look at the world. and doesn't mean the state department that series or anybody else, but when you talk about the military, i remember, jim, when i was in the senate one of the committees i served on was the senate select committee on intelligence. john warner and i introduced legislation a number of years ago to project and bring up in the intelligence committee authorization bill, a study on climate change on how it would affect our national security. and this was quite a few years ago. so i wasn't the only one thinking about the john warner, john kerry, and bipartisan, a lot of people thinking about it. >> you were in china, is place where i've lived a long time coming country many people think could be the next competitor in

some way to the united states. how from your perspective do you fear, not fear, pay attention to china and to details about your aircraft carrier visit there? >> well, i've been secretary of defense about two years now, and i have taken six long asia pacific attracts. and one of the visits was a four-day visit to china as you noted earlier this year, and the chinese gave me a tour of the retrofitted the training aircraft carrier that they bought from ukraine. that was an interesting experience but as i had an opportunity to visit other facilities, and i have over the years have some relationship with china. i first went to china in 1983 as a businessman. that relationship is one that as i said earlier in more general

terms that we need to make sure we get right. we are not going to agree with them. we don't in everything, but we should be focused, they should be focused, and i think we are in many ways, on where we can cooperate. they are great power. they will continue to be a great power. we are a great power. we have made a point on the asia-pacific we balance, that was not about trying to contain china. or to cut shine of short. we don't want that to happen. we are a pacific are. we been a pacific power. we have strong obligations and treaty obligations there in that area. our economic interests are in that area. we can cooperate. we want to make sure the air and maritime channels are free and open. that's clearly in her interest in the interest of the world, not just economic interest of the world. so yes, we are going to have differences. we do have differences but we have far more areas with we can agree and that's where we should be focused.

>> as a volunteer observation, i often saw the connective tissue between his military both actively and some retirees with our chinese counterparts which was an understanding tool between the countries i thought. >> i just met with state council gang when user a couple weeks ago, and when i was in his and i got in all their ambassadors well and was there a number of times. i've got some personal relationships that up and helpful, and we all know that nations are always responding in own self interest, that's predictable. that's good, but personal relationships are the looper got, just like in congress. if we could develop a little more of a personal relationship basis, the lubricant, it makes it less difficult. it doesn't change a policy but it makes it better. >> in our last minute or two of want to ask a personal question. as the president noted when dominating you, your first

enlisted veteran of your sort to lead the pentagon, ask you what your personal hope is in the remaining two plus years in this job. and also that time in which you serve, it was a very bitterly divisive vietnam area. you're not in the volunteer force anywhere a tiny fraction of america is serving while the rest of us are not involved. how does the experience of your vietnam service affect the we think about this ongoing service like this 1%? >> jim, we all are products of our experiences. and yes, it affected me. i was there in 1968, which was the worst year. we sent home 56,000 dead americans in one year. 2000 that today is unbelievable. -- 2000 that today assembly the. i learned an awful lot like anybody does when you go through that. but it helps and i think in many

ways to do this job and if nothing else, it has always made me aware of, be careful of unintended consequences, be careful of good intentions, always think through a whole sequence of questions. what happens, where's this going, what's the end result? and what could go wrong? and i wish are smart enough to have all the answers, i don't, but it's made me cautious. now, cautioned to appoint is okay but nothing you've got to make decision to get asked about the next two years. what i would hope the next two years we can do is bring this country back together to work together, to address these big, big issues coming at this country that will long-term consequences for our society, for our next generation. that's what help we can do. i will do everything i can to continue to do that. we will have differences, okay,

should debate those, that's okay but we've got to get the big things right and come together. >> well, please join in thanking secretary hagel forest service and for coming here today. africa. >> defense secretary chuck hagel from this point of the washington ideas forum at the top of his conversation he announced all american troops returning rob ebola response missions in west africa will be placed in supervised isolation. some are calling in quarantine, for 21 days. the ap writes because the test nearly 1000 troops in liberia, just over 100 in senegal supporting efforts to combat the virus. the total could grow to 3900 under current plans. the president today meeting with ebola health care workers at the white house. we will cover some comments from the president at 340 eastern on c-span. here on c-span2 the washington ideas forum out for lunch until

2:00 eastern. to resume this afternoon with many more speakers including former white house press secretary jay carney coming up this afternoon. all of that this afternoon live on c-span2. also a look a at the elections 7 of the any walters of the national editor of "the cook political report" had a conversation with senators john barrasso of wyoming, senator joe manchin of west virginia, jack markell, the delaware governor and maryland democrat chris van hollen this morning looking ahead to the midterms next week. >> welcome we're less than a week ago from election which makes me very happy. maybe makes a lot of people on this couch happy. i feel like we're at the point right now where it's a little bit before christmas and the presence or under the at i spend a lot of my day shaking those presents with bows on them things like i was sent and colorado governor wondering what's inside.

but i'm going to take us a little bit away from the present piece of this and what's going to happen on wednesday and look sort of all of it beyond that as well. and i know we talk a lot or hear a lot about these numbers getting thrown around, prognosticators talking about these models they have, 60% or 52% chance or 73% chance this and take it with. the first question is a different number. that's the number of 68%. that's the percentage of people who would be paying attention to this election which is down 10 points from 2010, down further from where we were in 2006, people said they are not keyed into this election. fewer people now than in the last two midterm elections say they will vote. maybe we can start this way. i have my theories why people are not engaged but i'm curious what you think about it and why that's happening. and what it tells us about both this election what to expect going forward.

>> amy, i think it's largely a result of cynicism in the electorate. as you indicated you always have lower turnout in midterm elections but the fact you have even fewer people engaged than in normal midterm elections i think is if a can of the fact they looked washington, d.c., look at the congress and they see nothing getting done. a lot of them are concluding that it doesn't make a difference. you're especially cink's among independent voters where the intensity of independent voters are likely to build independent voters has dropped significantly from previous midterm elections. those are the voters that are hoping for compromise, hoping for solution. i think all voters are hoping for a solution that they are the people especially turned off as e result of what they see as anr action here happy to talk more about the causes i think that'se the perception of the inability get things done has reduced thet focus in this midterm election.r

>> governor , you were at governors are supe different. they're not part of this mess in washington but, are you, is there a sense that the governors races are different, that they are not as much a referendum on inaction? or is it still frustration going on that statehouses seem to be even more polarized than they have been in the recent past? >> i think governors are different. i think senator manchin would probably agree with that from his own experience. and i think we're different because we're generally, we're not measured so much based on whether we give a great speech or quality of our rhetoric. we're measured on pretty simple things like are we making economy better and improving schools and the like. that being said, i think what the congressman said about cynicism is right, in the sense not only are people frustrated that washington is not getting anything done, i think people feel more and more their voice doesn't really count. they're drowned out by big money and that the appeals of so many

elected officials that candidates make to them have absolutely nothing to do with their own lives and have to do with this neavitt triol about the other person. degg neavitt triol. people are more interested in themselves than the candidates. what will candidates to make their lives better. they're not hearing anything compelling in that regard. >> you're on the trail. you must hear a lot about this speak to the point the fact is a lot of people who would be compromisers, so-called moderates you're campaigning for, they're the most vulnerable and, if they lose, who is sort of left? >> john here, we work together a lot and you have to have people in the middle. right now we've got core of our middle, middle of our party in the senate is right up for election and everybody is on the bubble right now. so, it will make it much more difficult if they're not successful to try to get anything done no matter who is leadership. you have to have that moderate

middle to work with. i think people are upset from this standpoint. in west virginia, when you spend this much money trying to tell us who we should be for and why we should be against somebody and most of it is negative, why we should be against somebody, they like to think, if you care that much about my state, why don't you invest something, do something, show me you really care. don't scorch the earth and thinking t turn ad lot of people off thinking all i'm see something negative. no human being could be that bad nobody could be as bad as -- and i think the people are just fed up with it and also that they think it has been taken out of their hands. they have very little to do with the outcome anymore, so much money, so much control by so few. >> let me ask you all this too. i would love for to you weigh in. we know in 2016 it is more moderate republicans that are up in the senate. folks from blue states, not just, these aren't democrats in red states, republicans

defending blue states. is expectation we'll see same thing? will you go out on the trail this person here says they're moderate, they're really not, they're a terrible person? >> i don't do that. i know the ones i work with. and republicans i work with, you've got susan collins should get reelected. you have basically down in, lindsey graham should get reelected. lamar alexander should get reelected. i'm a democrat saying this. these are good people. you have to have that certain core. i also think mark begich should get reelected and mary landrieu should get reelected. mark pryor should get reelected. these are all solid people. you can work with them. you can come to some agreement. when you lose the ability to have conversation, i said this so much, i came, most of us come from an area where guilt by association. if somebody did something wrong, they see you talking to them they think you must agree with them. this town is guilt by conversation. john and i sometimes can't even have a conversation with both

side thinking we might be conspiring. when you can't have people willing to say we're going to talk about these issues, and that is what is really at stake right now and it's scary. >> i know you penned an op ed the other day what happened if republicans took control of congress. you seem to be addressing this whole issue and focus on competence and getting something done that the public wants to see done. is that really, truly possible, given the way that these campaigns have been run, first of all, vitriolic, a lot of negatives. the fact that the middle more likely than not to be gone. you will have really conservative and really liberal, and seems to be a culture where one side says it is our way or the highway, there is no compromise? how can that work? >> i think it is critical we get things done. i'm optimistic about the future. joe and i work together on a lot of issues. we serve in the energy committee together. we work on energy and i address some of that in the op-ed. interesting you mentioned 68% number about, "washington post,"

6%, dan's column, people think is country is seriously, 6% of the americans think the country is seriously heading in the wrong direction. i've been in 17 states with all our candidates, that is what i'm hearing across the country we're concerned we're ahead evidencing in the wrong direction. we need to get something done. say say in this editorial, look at bills that passed house with significant numbers of democrats voting along with republicans on energy, on changes to the health care law. on education, on jobs and economy, stuff that penny pritzker was talking about to get done for the country, get people back to work, to put people with more money in their own pockets. >> one thing you mentioned, republicans willfully repeal obamacare. that seems like nonstarter we start with compromise. that is issue, beyond the fact that you know the president will not go along with that democrats will not go along with it, 60% of the public says we don't want

a full repeal, we want fixes but we don't want a full repeal. we'll start, if we start from that premise i don't know how -- >> there will be a vote on that. >> then what happens? >> the parts of the health care law that have been so damaging. secretary of commerce was out here talking about people's take-home pay. when the president and health care law defined the work week as 30-hour week, that has hurt so many workers across the country, as school districts, universities, cut their hours, to below 30 hours a week. that is cutting into people's paychecks. this whole employer mandate, health care part of the law. i think over 30 democrats voted to delay or repeal the employer mandate because they know it is hurting the economy, it is hurting people's ability to get back to work. so i'm looking at things that passed the house with overwhelming bipartisan support and get those to the president's desk. >> this guy is in the house. >> let me just say i think the.you suggested is absolutely

true. how you run a campaign determines in part your ability to governor en. whether you're willing to make compromises necessary and right now we zoo a lot of scorched earth campaigns against a lot of moderate democrats as senator manchin indicated. what disturbs me most about the polling data, if you ask democrats in polls whether they're interested in compromising to get things done for the country, you have about 60% who say yes, we do want to compromise even if we don't get everything we want. when you ask that same question of republicans and certainly tea party republicans, you get very different answers, much less interest in compromise. so that is why you have a lot of candidates who are running on republican side who are saying, we're not going to compromise on these issues. when in fact they get elected, if you will deliver no compromise, it means you deliver continued stalemate. senator raised issue of those

that have lots of bipartisan support, we have a bipartisan immigration bill, passed by the senate with a bigby partisan vote. we haven't even had a vote on that in the house of representatives. that is an issue that majorities in the country support. >> now the incoming majority leader in the house, kevin mccarthy, quoted other day saying we have to prove we can govern. we'll reach out. sounds like he has a different approach, much like senator barrasso here. are you optimistic about that? i think -- >> i'm a natural optimist. >> we have one muscular united agenda. we'll bridge both chambers. >> i saw kevin mccarthy's comment. i welcome that. >> do you believe them? >> i believe his intention. the question is whether he can deliver his intention given the fact so many people in his caucus, especially on tea party side, they're making gains, in the house, a number of the current incumbent republicans

who are already very much on the right being replaced by people even further on the right and more invested in no compromise. so, again, i welcome the intention. there are lots of things that the public clearly supports moving forward on. we'd like to at least get a vote on in the house. >> this is why i'm glad to be a governor. >> i know. you don't have to deal with that. >> no that it is not politics is perfect in my state or any other state but to, we can at least get stuff done. and that is exactly what people are looking for and it is what they hold us accountable to. >> what we're seeing at legislative level, at one point it was, that congress may be dysfunctional but at least at the legislative level governors would, in most states have to deal with one body or maybe both that were of a different party. now you have more one party controlled legislatures than we've in certainly in recent history. so, tell me though about how

that works? i think we're seeing some backlash. we're seeing a lot of states where there is an agenda, both on the left and the right, that is much more partisan and where we're seeing voters feeling as frustrated with their state government as they are with what is happening with washington? >> this is all i've known as governor. i was elected in 2008. before i was, i'm a democrat. democrats were in the minority in the house. since i was elected we had a majority in both chambers. and so that brings with its own blessings and its own difficulties for sure. part of what we always have to do is make sure we're focused on where people want us to be focused and not to ever overinterpret any particular mandate. so most of the things that we have to deal with as a governor are not particularly partisan. creating more and better jobs, improving schools, make sure we're doing what we ought to do for health care and transportation and the environment. these are not democratic or republican issues. one of my responsibilities i

think, the responsibility of every governor is to keep the ledge you're focused on what actually matters to the people. >> that is what i was going to ask. how does a governor do that? seems like some of these states, colorado on democratic side and north carolina, the republican side, where legislature, new legislature, one party control decided they wanted to push governor and push the agenda and governor seemed to go along with it. now they're feeling backlash of that. >> yes. >> how do you as governor say to the legislature, i know you guys have the vote, maybe enough votes to override my veto, how do you do that? you. >> use the bully pulpit and remind people of history. what happens, these things tend to go in cycle. i remind the legislature in delaware for example, there were two times last 40 years when democrats had a supermajority in both chambers as well as having governors office, within two years or four years it was totally reversed. that actually happened a couple of times. voters tend to keep us honest over a long period of time. i think our job is to make sure we all stay honest and focus on

what people expect in the near term. >> okay. >> i can speak from both sides. i was a governor of the state of west virginia from 2004 to 2010 and now coming to the senate. when i decided to leave early after senator byrd died, as a leader you never put opposing side in embarrassing position where you can never go home and defend themselves. you give one shot. you mislead them panned put them in the position where they can go home and defend themselves, they will never be with you again. i had supermajority of democrats in house and state senate when i was governor. i had a group of republicans very closely with because i needed them all at times to get some things done. with that being said i would never let democrats beat up on republicans. the other thing i wouldn't let republicans take cheap shots at democrats. i have could control that. i had the budget. they all wanted something. so i could say we'll all play and play as a family here. we'll have a lot of fun with

politics but take care of state of west virginia first. i thought that would be same. i'm not seeing that. i'm being respectful i can from leadership all across the board. democrats and republicans from the top, white house all the way down on house and senate side. i haven't seen for the sake of country we're going to do this. you want to take a tough vote, john. joe, you take a tough vote to help the country. i haven't seen anybody -- that bothers me. >> that is where i want to get to. i don't want to pick on what the republican leadership is doing, but democratic leadership harry reid. >> yeah. >> in terms of lack of votes, right? i think cq came out the other day and found that there were 18 legislative votes, 18. in entire year. >> it is wrong. >> so how do you change that. >> well here's the thing -- >> do you i that, and we'll get jim to answer about whether that changes under republican control? >> the democrats right now in the senate are believing no matter what we do, with

intentions from the leader of the republican party we're going to destroy this president. our main objection is, everything they do is premised on that, okay? right, wrong or indifferent, forget about that. that was two, three, four years ago. if their intention is to filibuster everything we ought to give them the right to do that. as senators we ought to have, we have earned right to make a fool of ourselves. [laughter]. we have. so if i'm saying john will do these things, let's give john a chance to filibuster all night long if he wants to and let american public. on other hand, harry, easier for me to go home and explain what i voted for than what i didn't vote at all or what i voted against. harry, keep us there 24/7, let's vote, wear each other out. let process work. vote on keystone pipeline whether you like them or not. i can at least explain that and john can filibuster it. [applause] >> so, do you think this is what

a republican-controlled senate would look like? if pat toomey says, you know what? i know this is not the agenda necessarily of the republican leadership but i want to put an amendment out there. i know have democrats to support it. i like to see the amendment, you think that would happen? >> we need regular order. barbara mikulski passed many appropriations bills out of the appropriations committee. harry reid did not allow a vote on one of those on the united states senate. there have been 2,000 amendments introduced last year, 1,000 from democrats and 1,000 from republicans there have been 20 votes. mark begich in alaska, been in the senate in six years, never in six years had a roll call vote on amendment with his name on it on the floor of the united states senate. no democrat senator elected in 2012, two years ago, none of them, elizabeth warren, has not had a single vote on a single amendment on the floor of the united states senate with her name on it.

so, these are senators who offered hundreds and hundreds of amendments and harry reid says, no. i think it was hill or "roll call" yesterday says he tied the senate in knots to protect his members from taking votes on anything of substance. so when the president comes out and says, it is my policies that are on the ballot, and they vote with me 98 or 97 or 99% of the time, that to me make this is a referendum much more on the president and his policies and the fact that nothing gets done with a democrat-controlled senate which is why i penned editorial time to put republicans in charge, back to regular order where we actually have votes onments up or down and deal with budgetary issues, appropriations and even nominations. you have secretary of commerce out here a few minutes ago. she got confirmed 98-1. so, silvia burrwell, never can get a health and services

nominee again, from west virginia, capable, competent, all of those three, knew what she was doing, over 08 votes. so there is bipartisan support for mainstream people as penny said. they have one agenda for the country. get some trade going. harry reid after the state of the union when the president now five years in row said we need trade, next day harry reid says not in this senate you're not. so there are things where the president need to work together. >> real quickly, basically, as a parent, you take care of your children at adolescent age. they become teenage, find their own identity, go to college, they're 30 or 40 years old now. let them make decisions. they will make them. >> harry reid is not your paint. >> to be very fair to harry reid, harry reid would accept the following deal in a second. >> which? >> up or down majority on anything in the senate. up or down on majority vote

anything in the house. in the house we have not had vote on minimum wage increase. vote on immigration reform bill, vote or equal pay for equal work, haven't had a vote on lots of things that american public overwhelming supports. majority vote in the senate. majority wins. majority rote vote in the house. harry reid would -- >> even on bills that would embarass the white house? whether something on obamacare? something on keystone pipeline? >> 53 times on keystone. >> president would veto bill. >> would he allow a bill allowed would embraer asker the white house democrats would vote for would get majority? >> i think he would accept the deal i just talked about, which is speaker boehner agrees to majority votes in the house. majority votes in the senate. so -- >> part of this is way constitution is written. history of the country. senate was set in a way with 60-vote thresholds so people asked to vote in the senate do so for proposals that need

bipartisan support, to keep things getting done in the things that mainstream america would look for. not things on one extreme or other. why for treaties you need 67 votes. why you need 60. idea of nomination was supposed to be 3/5 so you got nominees like the secretary of commerce, like -- >> senator you made a perfect argument. >> we haven't had a vote yet on surgeon general who was nominated 13 months ago during the ebola crisis. we don't have a surgeon general because even with 55 democrats in the senate, harry reid can't get 51 because this nominee is so off the mainstream and so wrong for the job. >> senator, you must, you made the best argument why the house should vote on every bill that comes out of the senate. because the bills that come out of the senate, as you say, they have to get that supermajority vote. whereas the bills you mentioned in the house, yes you had some democrats but we don't have the supermajority requirement. so they don't meet that same

test. so the immigration reform is exhibit a. it met all the tests you just said. speaker boehner won't let it come to a vote. so because of the differences between the senate and house, which you described, there is no excuse not to have a vote in the house on bills that passed the senate. >> i know we can go back and forth but let me just say -- >> can we end with one positive thing? time is almost up. everyone will say for all those people, this election doesn't matter, i feel frustrated, washington is broken, can you give us optimism whether the straight or whether from anywhere? very quickly anyone wants to stand up and say this is why i'm glad i'm in congress, this is why everybody should vote? >> i think most underreported story around health care, most overreported story the affordable care act. most underreported story is incredible progress being made in states across the country to transform the way we deliver and pay for health care, moving away from fee-for-service model.

and i just, i think the implications are going to be profound and i think in the end, in terms of what really matters to people in their home communities, is that work and think it is incredibly positive. lots of states are laboratories of democracy. lots of different experiments going on in states across the country. we'll learn from each other. we don't care by the way if good idea is from democratic governor or republican governor. we care about what works. >> we're still the hope of the world. only country can fix what is wrong in a democracy and work together and can do that. >> my dad was in the battle of bulge. had to quit at ninth grade because of the depression. he always said, john, thank god you live in america. you don't know how fortunate you are. >> thank you very much you all. >> one of the conversation from this morning's session of the

sixth annual washington ideas forum hosted by the atlantic and the aspen institute. it is set to get back underway at 2 p.m. eastern. discussions, interviews with people like steve case, investor t. boone pickens and former white house spokesman jay carney. anakin this will start up again at 2:00 eastern. live coverage here on c-span2 when they do that. in the meantime we will take you to a discussion on the 2014 midterms from its moorings "washington journal." this time focusing on national security and foreign policy issues are playing. house of representatives the topic here for the next hour will be kept in 2014, national study issues how they're playing out in the midterm election. for the roundtable discussion with matt lewis of the daily column, seemed contribute and a columnist for the "daily beast" and amanda terkel who is the senior political reporter on politics and editor for the "huffington post." let me begin with this "washington post" abc news poll

that just came out. 53% of those polled think the federal government's ability to do with the country's problems has worsened. majority of those folks blame president obama and the democrats for that. matt lewis, was the outcome? >> guest: first i think it makes sense you would eventually get around to blaming the guy who's been in office for six years. that makes sense. presidents always be bad and sort of second term, second midterm. but also i think it's the fact that honestly president obama is sort of whole rationale for being president was really to restore hope and change and also to sort of make people believe in government again. and so it's kind of a double whammy, the fact that some things can go suck some the things are going wrong. it's not surprising at all the republicans i think reporters have a very good midterm house of representatives amanda terkel, how are democrats

responding treachery act that was signed that historically presidents, their parties can do pretty poorly in midterms in the second turn. but i think right now the country is feeling very chaotic. the fact that this ebola outbreak is happen right before the midterm elections doesn't help president obama and democrats very much. domestically things feel very chaotic. pedophilic they can work and work and work and do everything they thought it was posted for the american dream, they are not getting it. that's playing out internationally. we see all these crises with islamic state, with ebola it's i think people are feeling very chaotic. and looking for someone to blame. it's not surprising that they will look towards the president. he is the one in charge. democrats control the senate if republicans control the house. really who are americans going to blame the most in this election the democrats are trying to flip it and say republicans are in part to blame, funding cuts have helped worsened the response to ebola.

and a look at much worse to be if republicans take power. i think that's a democrats are trying to friend. >> host: let me show our viewers some campaign ads. let me begin first with the rnc to add and how different these national security issues. >> ice is gaining ground, terrorists committing mass murder, ebola inside the u.s. americans alarmed about national security. what's president obama doing? making plans to bring terrorist from guantánamo to our country, ignoring the constitution of congress and the american people. november 4, obama's policies are on the ballot. know to keep terrorists off u.s. soil. vote republican your. >> host: matt lewis, your reaction to? >> guest: i think there are three big factors that are all going in the republicans direction. we've always said he's midterms tend to go against the president.

i see the six-year itch midterm. secondly, i think you have these selection bias. democrats are defending all of these red states. the red state democrats, so they're in a bad position. maybe more important are at least equally as important is the politically barbara. we are heading into election with a big topic for months now has been things like isis and then ebola. so i have written at the daily call to provide a theory that this reminds me of matt lewis hierarchy of needs, which is a psychological principle, which everybody learns in psych one of one but essentially means that our sort of primal need for security and safety and food, the first thing you need to satisfy. once you get past that you can start to worry about things like self-actualization. i would argue over having happen right now is a situation where republicans are benefiting greatly from people worrying about their primal needs. if you have to worry about surviving, if you're going to

live, you are not going to worry about whether not the government will provide you with taxpayer-funded birth control, for example. democrats tend to do better when things are, when things seem fine to republicans i think our honestly sort of playing helping hype, helping to hide these grave concerns and they think they're benefiting greatly. the same mom who is a security mom, the war on women, soccer mom could become a security mom is the political environment changes. i think it has. >> host: there's a democratic group out there. the agenda project which tries to do same thing with the situation with ebola, and this ad got a lot of criticism but let's show our viewers this one. >> washington actually can cut spending. ..retionary funding has been cut by $85 million since 2010. >> cut. >> cut. >> our budget has been flat

since 2003, responding to an emerging threatening disease that, this is especially damaging. >> cut. >> cut. >> the right cross was the sequestration. >> the nih saw its budget there are outbreaks sort of a half truth because president obama requested less funding. what is your reaction to what's going on? >> guest: you feel unsafe that is a cause president obama's fault but at this and what we are seeing is you think things

are bad now, republicans share the blame and it's only going to get worse. both of these are playing out. you saw national security was weary after the war in afghanistan and iraq and we thought this shift away from the neoconservatives and the rhetoric position. now with these international crisis we see the public that is more willing to engage internationally and it's i think helping republicans to some extent. it's easier to say democrats are being weakened america needs to be stronger than it is to say we need to take a measure that would explain how we do that. >> guest: the "washington post" fact check is calling it for pinocchio's. i do think it is legitimate as much as i think both sides are right they are sort of

scaremongering i think there is a place for these policy debates and you could have policy discussions and should president obama have armed moderate rebels and should republicans and democrats do a better job of coming together and set up the sequestration and funding these agencies and i think that's perfectly legitimate but added that across the line. >> host: does it concern the voters? >> guest: there have been ads. there was one in nebraska that i'm thinking of put out by the congressman republican candidate for setting up crime on the streets here. there is chaos abroad and

tidying those together. they are not really related. the streets of nebraska isn't related to what the obama state is doing the putting that together since this is because the democrats into president obama winning ticket is out of office and then everything will be safe. that i think is playing out in people's fear and not really facilitating any discussion. >> host: with one week to go it is going to be an election on the national security issues? >> guest: they are rarely about the national security issues. maybe unfortunately as we know. but i think that amanda is onto something. it transcends that. it's not about national security per se. i don't think people walk into the voting poll saying i'm voting republican because of national security. but i think that it's sort of -- it is an issue that skews their favor and it's sort of people will probably do it without noting. so i think it's sort of part of

the zeitgeist. i don't know that they will do it consciously but the short answer is yes. >> host: amanda? >> guest: if they do but it won't be as conscious. people walk into the booth and say i'm voting for this candidate because i want to make sure that planned parenthood is at the front end. i care about reproductive rights and i want to raise the wage and to see my taxes go down. those domestic ideas tend to be more visceral for people but certainly, this what is going on internationally is playing into what people are doing. >> guest: people are going to be walking into the polls saying i feel like there's chaos. i feel afraid. something needs to change. we need to send obama a message. but i don't think that it will be that they are actually thinking through the national security although that sort of is what it is part of the narrative. >> host: with all of this the national security headline in the paper today is is that security department announced

they would be raking up security as ranking of security as federal buildings after you saw what happened in canada recently. so, that announcement from the homeland security homeland security said. johnson. let's get to arc in the cincinnati waiting on the line. go ahead. you are up first. >> guest: >> caller: why do cincinnati republicans patrol the bengals over the republican party? >> caller: because we would like to see a win for a change. [laughter] that is to say the state of play a quick thought and i will try to be brief the national securities cut to the core of the democratic promise, which is basically you can't do things for your self. put us in charge and we will take care of everything. and it seems that after six years of being in charge of more and more things are less and

less in control and one final point i would like you to comment on the politically speaking, the republicans have this insurmountable problem. republicans cannot win because of america's demographics. and on the other hand, democrats have gained overwhelming insurmountable problem with reality. the policies cannot win overtime. i would be glad to chat if you want. >> host: i will have to respond to what you have to say that i want to share this headline in the "the washington times" republicans lead. in ohio a crucial state in these midterm polls for every election most of them badly the prospect is healing republican argument that it is the next election and voter support in the key states plus the national approval in the gop policies.

>> guest: i think that isn't debate is because we haven't been contested. the candidate for the governor ed fitzgerald has a song about based on how he imploded. it's not our turn to be a battleground state although we typically are. so it is all going to go read probably for us. but to me -- -- it has become a ten day extravaganza. we hope some of you that haven't been there before will come and the tickets will go on sale for that in just a couple of weeks. just a very quick note of what's in store this afternoon and tomorrow morning we will have lots of fabulous newsmaker interviews in this space. and at the same time in the stage in the room downstairs that we will call today and

tomorrow the innovators stage, we have a more intimate setting where we are going to have some fabulous speakers in a much more interactive dialogue with you so we hope very much as many of you as possible will spend time both in this space and downstairs as well. i would like to take a minute to thank our underwriters. our underwriters are terrific and we wouldn't be able to do this without their support and their active encouragement and participation. they are at a presenting level comcast nbc universal, nestlé and the walton family foundation at the supporting level, the american federation of teachers, aft, google and the national council for behavioral health. after the contributing level, allstate, gsk and our knowledge partner is mckinsey and company. it is now my great pleasure to introduce the coproducer of this

extraordinary event, margaret carlson. >> good afternoon and welcome back. i am going to go to the other stage to do an interview and welcome anybody that would like to come down there with me. now it is my pleasure to introduce craig venter. in the menagerie of his imagination, tiny bugs will save the world. so says "the new york times" in describing him and his work at the institute. venter was among the first to speak of the human genome and now sits beside on the new goal creating synthetic organisms that can produce useful compounds from food to fuel. to guide us through this interview, we have radio lab's robert krulwich. [applause]

>> we are in kind of an unusual technical situation because craig venter is in san diego, supposed to be here is a little with something. so let's see, can you hear me? he is ill with something akin to mutinous. he's looking pretty good. can you hear me at all robert it'd be scary looking, he's not he's just ill. [laughter] we have a number of backup systems i suppose that we should employ. if worse comes to worse i will tell you what he would have done if i could control him like a puppet. [laughter] all right. that might mean he's hearing me. can you hear me? >> i can.

>> maybe we lost you. so, what's wrong with you? [laughter] >> i didn't want to leave for washington, d.c.. it would have made montezuma proud of. [laughter] let me quickly ask you because we don't have a lot of time, but i guess that you have a whole list of things that you are doing. but the one that intrigues me the most is this notion of a minimal cell. first can you explain what a minimal cell is? >> i've been trying to work on this since 1,995 cents the first two genomes in history. trying to understand fundamentally the very minimal set of genes that can be responsible for the self replicating life. so, we have been working on this for a long time.

we had our first synthetic version in 2010 as you know. we've been working since then to try to design a cell from scratch that has just the minimal set of genes necessary for replication in the laboratory environment. >> so, us humans have 20 to 30,000 genes. you started with a little itty bitty thing. and you tried to make it ittier and bittier. how low did you go? >> that is put in a way that only you can put it, robert. yes, so the smallest organism set of genes was sequenced in 1995, mycoplasma was a little over five super genes. the goal is and the problem in this whole field is our

fundamental knowledge of biology is so limited that we don't know about 20% of the genes can do. so, it's trying to do a design when you don't know what 20% of the parts do. all that you know is is they are absolute necessary. i told you the story when i was in seattle on part of my book to her. my late uncle who was part of the deifying team that design team for the 767. he said imagine if they didn't know what 20% of the parts did. what makes you think that we knew? [laughter] >> this is kind an interesting idea. you take the genes that you've chosen to you think these are the ones necessary for life. you shoot one of them and then you say look as if still alive? you shoot another one, is it still alive? you shoot another one coming as it still alive? so where are you now in the

gallery? >> i think, so the problem in that method -- and that is a pretty good description of what we've done -- it turns out that it's important for life and there's little pathways and duel systems that haven't yet been totally recognized by modern science. it's hard to get the funding to study these things. but you can knock out genes that when you knock it out of its own, it doesn't kill the cell. but as you knock out the unknown counterpart, you can do that. if we use the airplane analogy and you are in a triple seven aircraft, you can lose one engine and the airplane keeps flying so you can say well maybe engines aren't really necessary and so you lose the second one and find out that in fact they were very important. so it turns out people fought by knowing the structure of the jeans genes that they knew what

the functions so we thought we could say we don't know that particular function the particular function but the genes have multiple functions and their counterparts have functions that we want so it's been more than just trial and error. of course we did it and that didn't give us a living cell so we are adding back components. one is working on the shooting of one at a time and we had in the back we built these and five different cassettes when your test environment of all of the others that looks like it works because there was a counterpart. this is to get below 500 or so genes.

>> this is a little bit like there's clay and the vendors at him so it should take ten years to figure out. >> exactly. it may be a while longer. you might remember stephen colbert asked me why i thought i could do better than god and i said well, we have computers. [laughter] >> let me ask you this: co. i would assume that if you get a cell that you can boot up from a store-bought ingredients and you can create a life it is a very simple life, why do we need one? stack we don't need one per say for that as a proof of principle. but if we actually want to do designs for building new organisms to make new vaccines, new medicines, food sources,

etc. we want to get down to where we can actually do the design on the push principle basis. so the other thing that we are doing rather than try to make the minimal genome, if you think of it as computer analogies for the evolutions things get inserted all over the place and there is no logic to it. there's a lot of randomness. but if we are trying to do the designs where we want to put in a cassette or genes for the sugar metabolism and the methane metabolism we like to do that as you plug in this cassette and have the energy production for the cell. so we are defragging and that is a must or complicated than it might seem as well. but the point is to get to where we can start to do the design from the known components to start to build new things for the future these are the early baby steps that allow us to start accelerating the design

and building of new organisms for very specific manufacturing purposes. >> let me use some of those purposes. he. you were thinking of maybe the pollution eating bugs, fuel producing bugs that urinate diesel or gasoline, toxin eating bugs, medicine producing bugs. you would then put them in the air and the water and the land. the first question that comes to my mind is how hungry are we about to be or how energy needy or anxious for for freshwater that this would be something that politicians would plus? do we need this? >> of the earlier plan is not to add them back to the environment. i think that would be a mistake to do. as you know, we sailed around the globe picking samples in the

ocean and the and sequencing the organisms there. over 40% of our oxygen comes from those algae. we wouldn't want those replaced by those that produce a whole lot of boiled instead of oxygen to say give us lately due in the oceans of these would be organisms that in fact within that lives outside of the laboratory or outside a production environment and that is an important part of our design is building these so they can't survive on their own. but we are thinking of industrial manufacturing and applications. so, for example you can convert that almost into anything. we are working on designing new pathways that don't exist in nature for making the chemicals that go into plastic bottles. right now that comes from a whale as a byproduct of oil production so it's adding to the pollution taking oil out of the

ground. we burned some of it and reduce its two chemicals and plastic bottles. if we make the same chemicals from sugar, we convert them to a renewable chemical and are able to recycle all of the ways we use them. so we also have the algae that growing the desert of the synthetic genomics that use sunlight and carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and we need high doses of co2. we have to concentrate it pumping even more in in all these different chemicals including -- >> we are talking about little things but we need a lot of fuel. is it a simple matter once you have proven the concept to scale up?

the hardest goals will compete with the cost, the they came across and all of a sudden the car ran out of the ground gets cheap again. that is what makes it possible to compete. the only way to never compete is if the government actually create a carbon tax so that we start to realize it doesn't matter how cheap it is to burn coal or oil or natural gas in the long run. it's not cost effective to do so now. with the cost effective specialty chemicals for vaccines

etc.. >> let me ask you a lifecycle question. if you are running out of food and you can create a bug or you're running out of fresh water and you create a bug that has more freshwater or you're out of energy and can make more energy there is a theme. more, more. the alternate approach it seems to me would be to do less. eat less, by a less, more gently on the earth. it strikes me like you are more. >> i can only control how many people have babies in my own environment. [laughter] i don't know how to do that globally. we have a tremendous challenge with all the people we keep adding to the planet. not too long we could be

10 billion people. it's not sustainable with the approaches we are using in the consumption of everything. we could have less babies but unless we are going to go back populations which i don't think anybody is advocating at least not in the political arena, we have to find solutions to produce more food, more medicine not at the expense of the environment but a recyclable sustainable fashion. we can support the number of people that we do have a only if we change how we do it. >> my last question because we're almost out of time im curious about the ebola story right now. since you have been involved in virology and dealing with the bird flu as well what are we doing right at the moment and what do you think we are doing

wrong? >> it's primarily a public health management problem. there've been numerous outbreaks in the past and they've been managed by good containment. because of the location and on the borders of the war area of those containment issues fell apart and it started spreading around. able it isn't a lethal disease most of the time. i understand a group at harvard has been working on treatment in africa and they are down to around 12% mortality by using good medical practices. it would be great to have a vaccine to treat it but containment is the most important thing initially.

obviously in the future as we've done with the flu vaccine we could synthetically make a vaccine very quickly, e-mail it around the world. you can do one of our devices to print it and it can be given locally to stop future flu pandemics from ever spreading. that has to be done disease by disease. >> i would love to talk the audience he is working on a digital biological converter which if somebody is sick and vomiting and stuff you can scoop it up, figure out what the virus is contracted for the genome to the lab anywhere in the world and they can come up with a vaccine and ascended to you digitally and you can make it where you live. one day soon, never, maybe? >> we can do that right now with newly emerging flu vaccines.

the u.s. has a stockpile of a vaccine. the first synthetic dna vaccine that my team at the institute did. it proves the paradigm can happen so we have a stockpile before a single case has occurred in the u.s.. for the first time we are ahead of the game instead of trying to play catch-up. it's a matter of working out the right to basis of the basis of the disease. one size does not fit all but the future will be rapidly downloading them and blocking the transmission and we should be able to eliminate future pandemics. >> santa claus has very little on this guy. his presents are huge. we are out of time, santa.

everybody say goodbye to him applause-wise so he can hear you [applause] >> i wish i had the distinctive voice of robert krulwich. we are going to go from these tiny bugs to energy. our next guest team doing pic incest and called the gladiator of natural gas. he's been analyzing the business for more than half a century nearly 20 years ago at age 68 he built a brand-new company from the ground up. i hope i can do as much. he's also rallied 2 million supporters around the pickens plan and i met him when he brought his car to the chili bowl. we had the hot dogs and the chili and it took a spin around. this is a grassroots campaign he

spearheads aiming to reduce our dependence on opec oil. here he is to delve into his forecast and to be interviewed by our own atlantic's james fallows. [applause] >> thank you very much margaret and t. boones pickens for being here. this is a good day for me to be here. i got to interview the ceo chad dickerson and secretary hagel and now t. boones pickens, who i've known longer than the others. we first met more than 40 years ago back in texas. >> you know why you've known me longer than them? >> know, like lex >> = 86-years-old. [laughter] >> already we see the interview getting out of control because i see over the years that is what takes them guess how old he is. they always get slow. i thought ten minutes ago.

have you collected? >> i just told him if you guess my age i will give you $100 he said 96. [laughter] >> first is that you're in your early 70s on the corporate governance and rules for life what started out energy first. when we first met to the u.s. was beginning to tear opec. the price was going up. >> i want to say this was made 76, 77. >> okay excuse me for interrupting but you remember 73 was the arab embargo. >> so with the mid-70s i'm talking about and now the last couple of years we see the power coming u.s. imports going down. should we think it seems like just good news that the price of oil is low.

is it all good news or is there anything we should worry about in this decline? the >> remember that asp and we are importing over 7 million barrels. today, 3.2. that's good. i don't see anything to be worried about as to what is taking place. we are regaining our independence is what it is. >> if some people say there is something to worry about parts of part of the obvious benefits of having less of a drag on the economy isn't on oil fuels like natural gas chewer very big at.

>> the only way that we will have an influence is to introduce another fuel into the other is natural gas and natural gas will replace diesel. his acting fast, though, slowly but where i wanted to go is heavy-duty trucks. and if i can take out the 18 wheeler cut 8 million of them come if i can get those over nitrogen gas i can wipe out opec. we don't take anything from opec. the worst thing could happen to our country, and right now we get 3.2 million barrels but we are using every day in this country twice as much or you'll as the second country. these 18 million barrels a day. there's 92 million produced every day in the world. so, we are using 20%.

china using 10 million barrels a day. so, we are twice as addicted to oil as the chinese are. but here we are in a position if we just had leadership in washington what could we do? i am serious. i'm talking about energy, not anything else. but today, if you put together canada, i guess it's a day because the six mexico yucatán then forget it we have independence in north america. that's it. can we go to independence right now we are producing almost 9 million barrels a day so we are increasing half of what we are using importing the rest. most of it comes from canada. some of rob x. e-echo code and i said 3 million from opec. so, we could put north america

together we've got but i can't get the leadership did washington to even focus on the energy. the reason is what all the while the rest of the sessions today has been about. they make it difficult to do things in dc now and more productive at the state and local level. so how much of your plan for natural gas could actually be done at the state level where i know you are placing a lot of the emphasis? >> we have gotten results. in defense i am the only person appeared. >> that is correct. >> but i'm a patriotic american and i'm old. [laughter] washington has no interest in energy because energy is not a conduct and washington is driven to stories that they see every

night and the crisis is everything. the natural gas has done an unbelievable job for america. [applause] >> you know how to time your lines. that's always been true area to >> but let me tell you they didn't do it for america i can tell you that. i know all those guys i'm one of them. you're out there trying to make money is what you're trying to do. in the meantime what to do for america we got our independence from opec. >> let's talk about fracking. there's the environmental plus and minus of fracking. how should we think about fracking and any pluses and

minuses. there are a thousand miles and when the subject comes up and somebody jumps up out of the audience and tells me you are fracking. okay give me one example. one example is all that i need fracking damaging anything. fracking is tremendous for the first global warming crowd than we had the coldest winter in 100 years. messed up global warming. we will get a different views in this room. >> then we went to climate change and you talked about a tricky one. those meteorologists lose jobs every year because they can't

predict the weather from one week to the next. now global warming over to climate change. now you'll throw it in and we can really raise this up and that's it. the same crowd is focused on the fracking. there is no record and if anyone tells you that it causes earthquakes you can't move enough to cause an earthquake. it's impossible. >> i'm going to stipulate again. we could spend the next five hours but let's move onto some on to some others for now. you first came onto the national screen with your shareholder values and rights crusade. >> take us to the period when it was the issue. >> so when the corporations were

being run i will ask you you can take us to that era. it would be possible to imagine that we have had some of the worst of both worlds of the shareholders rights which is that corporations are under tremendous pressure to meet quarterly or daily returns which means the shortcuts the long-term investment etc.. and on the other hand, the managers feel it hasn't had a bad democratizing effect that you were arguing for. >> don't get caught up in this. i was accused of a fast buck artist. who in the hell would want to be a slow buck artist. [laughter] if you are ten and expect to get a 15 exterior, 30 days and it went to 15. would it make you upset lex

stood to defend how long i would want to uphold it. >> tell me about the feeling. [laughter] >> i haven't experienced this. [laughter] >> i choose my battles one of which is not to think about the world of finance at all because i'm the most boring financial person. >> so you would excuse yourself on herself on the question. but logically though, if i had ten and wanted 15 and i get it in three months at night what can i tell my wife. look how strong i am and guess what we've already gone at 15%. every man wants to well, performed for their wife. [laughter]

>> you are taking us to the next subject of conversation. >> they do. then wants to do nice things for their wives. to show them how smart you are is good stuff. but -- >> it's so great to live in texas in those days. >> in the mid-80s when when asked to place it could be the worst stop. i don't think so because carl and i were discussing this subject a year ago and i said you outlasted. i ran out of money or ideas or something like that but i didn't -- i quit. and the last time i tried that was in 91. but carl stayed there and he goes now he's spoken with great

respect and he is now an activist shareholder. i never got to be an activist shareholder. i went in and out as a rater. there's still a lot of mismanagement in corporate america. is it better today than it was in the 80s? guess it's better. but we take you back to the gulf. 1984. here we are, small company taking away trying to make some happen. never sold higher than 35. it was worth $100. we felt like the assets were worth $100 for years and years and years it stayed between 30 and 35. as you know this go of the company on 21,000 shares. i get up and make speeches and i said mr. we have 2 million invested in the company and all you have is 21,000 shares. where do you invest your money?

he was a friend of mine. we served on the executive committee together but he called me and said you're embarrassing me saying that and i said why don't you own more and he said well, i put it someplace else. that's what i said. [laughter] you like another investment better than the one that you are running. anyway, that's changed. that's part of it changed. people that are running these companies now though that you are going to have to get results and you can't sit around with a company that is evaluating $100 a share. they will get up and say when are you going to get something closer to 130? that's all good. is corporate america america better off in 2014 and it was in 1984?

yes. by far, no. the way they pick the board of directors is wrong. okay. i won't go there. >> so corporate america is important but what is more important is -- the atlantic ran a story last month by doctor e. manuel saying that people should hope to have a natural fading out of 75 because it was so hard. >> they should do what? [laughter] >> i thought i heard you right. are you telling me that this is my final appearance? [laughter] >> i'm not asking you to explain. we know that people are just lucky one way or another. >> i'm asking you you said recently that you're better in business because you have seen so many cycles. you are 86-years-old. what do you know about being a top functioning 86-year-old the

cycle of life that you want people here to note. should they fade out at 75? >> well, genes, you've got them or you don't. so that's not your call. [laughter] what has been my call is i had one that said said i'm a workaholic. no, i like work and i had a good work ethic. i grew up in the depression, small town in oklahoma and you were damn lucky to have a job. i was a kid that i had a shot of 12 job 12-years-old. but i always enjoyed work. that is lucky for me. one more time i'm lucky. but i would rather -- i quit playing golf at eight and when i was 78, true story, i had 11 and augusta. they said you have to go to

shots and i said no, i do. he said you had 11, something i've never done. and you didn't have to go to shocks. he said to tell me what you have created the first one is a drive down the other side into the second is not a good shot. he said what was it and i said it was perfect. [laughter] okay. i decided i couldn't get two shots in a row so i decided it was easy for me. all of this has always been easy for me to do. and i quit shooting at 80-years-old. i was one of the best shots in the country. but i had my generation and i see double. can i still kill birds? yes but i can't kill them with a consistency. and it wasn't as much fun. i would just assume what somebody else now. mainly what are you doing? you are adjusting to your age as

you go. i have had the same trainer for 26 ears and at the homecoming in oklahoma state, west virginia beat our asked last saturday and that wasn't fun. the rest of the day was and i was the marshal of the parade. why not i've given $500 million. [laughter] and now my wife and i are writing in this convertible and behind me are those guys with the board and they are getting up and doing push-ups and she says you can do that and i said okay i can. so, i got off the deal, got on the board. they lifted me up and i did 20 push-ups. [applause] i'm not through. i got back in the convertible into she said you were in the shade and i couldn't get a good picture.

[laughter] she said yes i want to get the picture. it's important. men want to do things for their wives. how do i get from here to there? i love my day every day. i go to the office, my trainer shows up at 6:30 in the morning, the same guy for 26 years. i am programmed and it couldn't be better. i have a great marriage. now you say have i given anybody a device or we threw? you are not old enough to know this but they used to have -- >> [inaudible] [laughter]

james fallows. [applause] >> he will do push-ups down on the innovators stage downstairs. it's good to be with all of you again and thank you for being here. for those of you that have joined, i'm the editor at i am the editor at large, washington editor at large at the atlantic and debate i want to remind cargo to the next session hello to the folks on c-span covering this all day life and we appreciate it. they decided that you're all having so much fun that they want to kind of brought in the tool. also on the innovators stage program we have katherine moore who's one of the most interesting surgical device into surgical innovators in the nation. she's on the innovators stage and this gives you a time to sort of ask questions and be engaged. we have ted olson, the solicitor general in the bush administration but he turns out to be the biggest legal advocate, same-sex marriage

advocate, one major legal case with evan wolfson of the freedom to marry downstairs. again, with jonathan and then at 4:00 one of the great innovators in the country with our very own kevin d. laney -- kevin delaney. why is it that the internet looks so ugly and magazines look so beautiful. mike mccue bowled over when he came up with the idea of a mobile app that has content from social that works, publications and interview your own personal magazine. i use it and i enjoy it. mike mccue always had the entrepreneurial itch. he started his first business in high school and looked up to steve jobs and bill gates as a teenager. he continues to rely on what he calls them on the past seeking to build products that mom can understand and can actually use. he doesn't know my mom because she can use everything better than i can and yes she does use

that word. we welcome her to talk innovation at startup culture with the editor-in-chief, kevin delaney [applause] >> we have been told if there is time at the end we have to do 20 push-ups. [laughter] mike mccue is one of the most successful founders in silicon valley. i want to go to the founding in 2010. a thought experiment at the creation of the fed board with a really interesting one and as i understand it was if it was washed away and you have to rebuild from scratch, what would you do. and that was the thought experiment behind clipboard. can you talk about the conclusions into the convictions that experiment led youtube that's played out?

>> when you're writing an e-mail it is a great e-mail and url to hit send and the computer crashes and you lose the e-mail and you have to write it again but for the second time it's better and you realize i probably could have done this better and i could have been more concise and it ends up being better. that was the thinking around how i approached my next. i wasn't even sure that i was going to start a company. i was just doing what i loved following t. boone pickens's advice building products, thinking about technology. and, you know, the big thing for me was i felt content stories were being lost. when you flip through the atlantic or the national geographic, you have a narrative. there is a sense of beauty to

it. beautiful photography, beautiful typography. there are things that guide you along. now increasingly over time it's getting better. the tobacco when we were starting flipboard it looked like it was frozen so we wanted to say look if you're going to build a web today you would optimize it for the mobile touchscreen device. that is one of the things we wanted to do is say look the reason magazines are so beautiful in part it's because they don't have to have lots of control. you don't have to have a toolbar and sidebar and navigation bar, just have great content. and then you just use your finger to to flip through the pages of the content. so that is something that we wanted to set the beautiful presentation and in the touchscreen device, you can move through the interface and have that kind of beauty. the other important thing is the

power of people. you know, people learn how to tell a story. they learn what makes a good story. and we wanted to leverage social the idea that the web is becoming not just the connection of an article to another article which is a very powerful thing, but now it's a person to an article and a person to another person. a person to a group of people. so now you have this new web that i don't think that we as an industry have even begun to grasp how powerful it is. >> so they were visual and social in the navigation of content. it's almost five years since the launch of flipboard. what do you know now that you didn't know then when you were imagining what the web should be almost five years ago? >> of the machines interwoven together to create a great content and the second thing would be the importance of

structure. what i mean by that is today you have a social media and that there is just an ongoing stream coming in infinite stream of people posting things and endorsing content. great stories help influence people and they have an end. there is a beginning and middle and end and in this infinite world of the stream there is no end. how you have a sense of timelessness how you allow people to step back and think about things and have that context to understand what matters that's something that we be leaving and i want to figure out how to enable that to happen people contributing to the content of that in a way that can be more structured and can have more of a narrative i think is really important.

>> you have an interesting aggregate view on the fundamental questions most fundamental is how people spend their free time to be at how people spend their waking hours and because you see people using the application you actually know when they are awake and when they are reading and across the world you see the pattern something. so what are the most interesting takeaways about how human beings use their free time or at least the reading habits. >> one of the most shocking is how much people use their phone to read. people spend a lot of time on their phone reading and it can become you know, a 50 page article and they will read it if it's a good article. and as a, the other thing that's been encouraging has been the amount of great longform journalism that everybody wants to read. the problem is that it is a little too hard to filter out the noise but people do want to

be able to read that so those are the two observations and they kind of go together. people will read the long-term journalism on the phone if it is presented well. and that is tricky to do but if you can do that i think that is a pretty big deal. >> what is your watch strategy. will people read on a longform watch and are you thinking of presenting content lacks >> not so much presenting content that moment when you might want to look at content on your phone. more context will and there is a variety of things of course there's breaking news you might want to know about but also the not so obvious. you might be standing near the white house and you might get a notification that, you know, there is something really interesting about this right now in this place that you should know about. >> they are very much linked

together. there's a tremendous amount of linkage between the phone and the watch that i think is going to be the gold. >> we should talk for a second about tablets. flipboard was launched with the ipad. what's interesting now is ipad is falling so in the last quarter they were down by 10% from a year earlier and there are people now that are saying in between the larger and larger smartphones and lighter and lighter laptops with is the purpose of a tablet computer and ipad, how do you see that? >> tablets are still growing fast, maybe not as fast as they were a year ago. part of that is due to the fact we have larger screens on the phone and they are starting to become like tablets. part of that is also because the tablet in the plaintiff you

hasn't achieved a fundamental breakthrough from where we started. it's incredibly thin and light. i think there are still opportunities to breakthrough further to have a few more like paper. when that happens, you will see that there will be a continuation of that form factor but the idea of a touchscreen is with us everywhere and i think that you are going to see that on the laptops and computer devices that will be used as a tablet or laptop. we will have phones greatest of these worlds are blending together. >> i want to ask about a few companies that you will work with directly. one of them is apple. one of the big concerns and questions when tim cook took over will apple be as good as the products designed in the post steve jobs era we have now had a few years of this. what is your verdict on that?

i think that it is alive and well and thriving and there are a lot of great product leaders that are still there. but there are many others. and i think that tim has done an amazing job of marshaling the creative energy in a way that yields great products time and time again. and so, you know, i think that they are doing incredibly well. >> so much on how people consume the content around facebook the companies that have sprung up whose strategies are built primarily around distribution through facebook and some basis of other people's content facebook is the mechanism for the companies and for the consumption of content. how do you see facebook's involvement with the media.

>> some are twitter, linkedin and how it is discovered particularly by the millennial's. i mentioned before this idea people and content are intricately connected together in ways that were never before possible in facebook is a big component of that but they are not the only ones and i think it is important that there are multiple places like this where there is a curated web that is developing. >> do you think it's distorting that the content is being placed on the algorithm? ..

i found a magazine